The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

This chapter focuses on the role that carbon monoxide played in the murder of Michael Malloy, whose seeming resistance to being killed earned him the nickname “Mike the Durable” (225). Malloy was a poor drunk who frequented Tony Marino’s speakeasy, where Marino would serve moonshine and host card games. Facing poverty, Marino and a few of his patrons devised a scheme to murder Malloy to receive a life insurance payment. The group chose Malloy because Malloy was “someone no one would miss” due to his state as a homeless drunkard (225).

Marino came up with a number of means to murder Malloy, but Malloy surprisingly endured each scheme. When given pure industrial alcohol containing the toxic methyl alcohol, Malloy drank the entire concoction with seemingly no effects to his body. The group attempted other methods of murder, such as hiring a cab driver to run over Malloy’s body with a car, but they continually failed. Finally, two of Marino’s associates killed Malloy with carbon monoxide, using a “rubber hose” to pump gas directly into Malloy until he died. Marino then procured a faked death certificate claiming that Malloy had died of alcoholic poisoning rather than carbon monoxide exposure.